Scores die in China mine blast
Ventilation links severed as rescue efforts go on for 21
HARBIN, China — Rescuers working in frigid cold and darkness tried to reach 21 people believed trapped a third of a mile underground after a huge gas explosion Saturday ripped through a coal mine in northern China, killing at least 87 people.
The predawn blast at the state-run Xinxing mine in Heilongjiang province near the border with Russia is the latest to hit China’s mining industry, the world’s deadliest. Authorities say safety is improving, but hundreds still die in major accidents each year.
Large state-owned coal mines, such as Xinxing, are generally considered safer than smaller, private ones that account for the bulk of production. The blast underscores the difficulties the government faces in trying to boost safety while maintaining output. Coal is vital to the vast population and booming economy, as China uses it to generate about three-quarters of its electricity.
Television footage showed smoke billowing out of the mine after the explosion went off, caused by a gas buildup. It caused a building to collapse nearby.
Some 528 miners were underground at the time. The State Administration of Work Safety said 389 of them managed to escape.
Of the rest, 31 miners were rescued, including six now in serious condition in hospital, China Central Television reported. Some 42 bodies have been recovered and rescuers were searching for 66 others still believed trapped in the mine.
CCTV displayed a diagram showing the miners trapped about a third of a mile underground. Footage showed that one entrance to the mine was blocked. Rescuers in orange suits and with breathing equipment were attempting to enter the mine through another entrance.
The massive blast cut power in the mine, as well as ventilation and communication links, hampering the efforts of the more than 300 rescue workers.
Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang visited some of miners recovering in hospital Saturday.
Sri Lanka to release remaining Tamil refugees
Next month Sri Lanka will release the remaining 136,000 Tamil refugees still in squalid and overrun government camps, including a camp in Vavuniya, above, the government said Saturday. Some 300,000 war refugees were forced into the camps after fleeing the final months of the government’s decades-long war with the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, which ended in May. The ethnic-minority Tamils are being held against their will in the camps, which are guarded by soldiers and strung with barbed wire. More than half were released in recent months amid pressure from rights groups and foreign governments.
NATION
Army probes suspicious note, package at Ga. base
FORT BENNING, Ga. — Army officials are investigating whether a suspicious note and package found at Fort Benning is a viable threat, a spokesman at the west Georgia post said.
Bob Purtiman said a soldier found the note and package Thursday morning in an outdoor gazebo. The soldier immediately told a supervisor, who called 911.
Purtiman would not say what was in the note or what was in the package.
He says security measures have been heightened in the meantime.
WORLD
Italy arrests 2 relatives over Mumbai attacks
ROME — Italian police on Saturday arrested a Pakistani father and son who allegedly spent slightly more than $200 to set up an untraceable phone network that was used by the militants who carried out last year’s terror attacks in Mumbai, India.
The two were arrested in an early morning raid in Brescia, where they ran a money transfer agency, and it is was not immediately clear if they were aware of the purpose their funds had served, police in the northern Italian city said.
The day before the attacks began on Nov. 26 they allegedly used a stolen identity to send money to a U.S. company to pay for Internet phone accounts used by the attackers and their handlers, said Stefano Fonsi, the head of anti-terror police in Brescia.
The transfer was just $229 but gave the militants five lines over the Internet and allowed them to keep in touch even during the rampage, Fonsi said.
Ten militants, allegedly from Pakistan, killed 166 people in a three-day assault on luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites in India’s financial capital.
WORLD
Iran plans war games to prep for nuke site strike
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran was scheduled to begin large-scale air defense war games Sunday aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from possible attack, a senior military commander said Saturday, reflecting the country’s concern that Israel could make good on threats to strike militarily.
The drill comes as a top clerical official renewed his threat to target “the heart of Tel Aviv” should Israel attack Iran.
The five-day drill will involve Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and the regular army and will cover 230,000 square miles of central, western and southern Iran, said air force Gen. Ahmad Mighani.
As Iran has pressed forward with its nuclear program, Israel has repeatedly threatened military action to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The U.S. also has not ruled out military action should diplomacy fail to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities.
Rocket in Kabul hurts 2
KABUL — Suspected insurgents fired a rocket Saturday at a luxury hotel that had come under attack before, injuring two people and rekindling fears that foreigners are being targeted in the capital.
The projectile hit just outside the perimeter wall of the hotel, where a number of foreign humanitarian workers, forced to relocate after a deadly strike on a U.N. guesthouse last month, have been staying in recent weeks.
The Serena, Afghanistan’s only five-star hotel, was the scene of a major attack in January last year, when it was stormed by gunmen and suicide bombers in a coordinated assault that killed seven people.
Israel hits Gaza sites
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it attacked two weapons-making factories and a smuggling tunnel in the Gaza Strip late Saturday.
The military said the air strikes were in retaliation for rocket fire into southern Israel from Gaza a day earlier.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers later announced that militant factions in the territory had agreed to stop firing rockets. The goal is to prevent Israeli retaliation.
Israel went to war against Gaza militants nearly a year ago to crush rocket squads who had severely disrupted life in southern Israel for years. Israel says weapons continue to reach militants through tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt.
THE NUMBER
33.2 million
The number of Americans traveling by car away from home for Thanksgiving. That’s a slight increase, 2.1 percent, over 2008, according to a report from the AAA auto club. But there will be a 6.7 percent decrease in the number of air travelers, totaling 2.3 million this year, continuing a decade-long decline of Thanksgiving air travel. The group surveyed 1,350 households.
